When does the Xmas season start? (Was Re: way way OT: wireless on planes (aside))

[Bill Vermillion]

Shakespeare wrote plays and sonnets that will last an eternity, 
but on Sat, Dec 18 16:18 , John Esak wrote:" 

> 
> Well, I'll jump on this topic to put up some fun...

> Here are a pair of scripts I put one after the other in our
> /etc/.profile every December. People love and hate them.  Just put them in
> your PATH somewhere like /usr/local/bin. (They are thoroughly
> tested and reliable for SCO Open Server systems... might need
> some doctoring for other flavors of *nix O/S.

And from one of obfuscated C contests years ago, here's a small
c program in the Christmas spirit.  For most of us you'll have to
compile it to see what it does.  Then there are people like
Ken and Mark who can read it as is.

It really does compile and run no matter how ugly the code looks.

========================================
/*
LEAST LIKELY TO COMPILE SUCCESSFULLY:
  Ian Phillipps, Cambridge Consultants Ltd., Cambridge, England

  An appropriate program for December 25th, this consists primarily of
  calls to main() combined by a lot of the ternary conditional (?:)
  operators. Have you ever seen a more forceful return? The judges note
  that this program looked like what you would get by pounding on the keys
  of a type writer at random.

  Note -- I have made a minor correction (for spelling) to line 48, where I
  added a missing comma at column 59. I also added the #include <stdio.h>
*/

#include <stdio.h>
main(t,_,a)
char
*
a;
{
	return!

0<t?
t<3?

main(-79,-13,a+
main(-87,1-_,
main(-86, 0, a+1 )


+a)):

1,
t<_?
main(t+1, _, a )
:3,

main ( -94, -27+t, a )
&&t == 2 ?_
<13 ?

main ( 2, _+1, "%s %d %d\n" )

:9:16:
t<0?
t<-72?
main( _, t,
"@n'+,#'/*{}w+/w#cdnr/+,{}r/*de}+,/*{*+,/w{%+,/w#q#n+,/#{l,+,/n{n+,/+#n+,/#;\
#q#n+,/+k#;*+,/'r :'d*'3,}{w+K w'K:'+}e#';dq#'l q#'+d'K#!/+k#;\
q#'r}eKK#}w'r}eKK{nl]'/#;#q#n'){)#}w'){){nl]'/+#n';d}rw' i;# ){nl]!/n{n#'; \
r{#w'r nc{nl]'/#{l,+'K {rw' iK{;[{nl]'/w#q#\
\
n'wk nw' iwk{KK{nl]!/w{%'l##w#' i; :{nl]'/*{q#'ld;r'}{nlwb!/*de}'c ;;\
{nl'-{}rw]'/+,}##'*}#nc,',#nw]'/+kd'+e}+;\
#'rdq#w! nr'/ ') }+}{rl#'{n' ')# }'+}##(!!/")
:
t<-50?
_==*a ?
putchar(31[a]):

main(-65,_,a+1)
:
main((*a == '/') + t, _, a + 1 )
:

0<t?

main ( 2, 2 , "%s")
:*a=='/'||

main(0,

main(-61,*a, "!ek;dc i at bK'(q)-[w]*%n+r3#l,{}:\nuwloca-O;m .vpbks,fxntdCeghiry")

,a+1);}
========================================

-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com